Can be disruptive in class

My article about over-diagnosing children, as well as teachers/parents that don't support kids being kids is out now in the summer 2010 issue of My Child magazine.

You can also view a low res copy on my Facebook.

Room to Grow TV

For some down-to-earth parenting advice and fun, check out Room to Grow TV, featuring Karen Miles as co-host and presenter in the 'Back to Work Mummy Makeover!'.

In this episode, Karen and Stefani help new mum Sam (who has just gone back to work after her first baby) get ready for this new family/life stage. Like many mums in her situation, Sam has concerns about how to make the transition back into the workplace as smooth as possible.

As working mums themselves, Stef and Karen are here to share some tips they’ve learned along the way about how to stay sane and even enjoy being a working mum!

Check out - http://www.roomtogrow.tv/blog/?p=378

Inner West Sydney Work-at-Home Mum?

If you're a work-at-home mum in the Inner West of Sydney eg: Leichhardt, Haberfield, Balmain, Rozelle, Petersham, Ciao magazine (local Sydney free press mag) wants to interview you!

The feature will focus on balancing family & work from home and will be a positive and inspiring piece for other mums.

Contact: Penny - e: penny@writehandgirl.com.au or ph: 1300 702 804

The Parenting Project

A very interesting article in yesterday's SMH - we've become a generation of 'over-parent-ers'.

I ran a workshop last night for mums looking into the return-to-work debate and the biggest issue was not how well their industry or role supported working parents, but how they felt about themselves as parents who also wanted a career.

We are so caught up with wanting to get parenting right, that we're driving ourselves into the ground trying to do everything for our children, and worrying about our impact on them - from how many days we should work to feeling compelled to develop our offspring at every given moment.

It's time for a revolution - I call it 'good enough parenting'. Toss the so-called 'expert' books and research out the window and back your own instincts and needs as a mum by making choices that you know work best for you and your family.

Read on...

Parents may be going too far in their ambition to give their child the perfect upbringing, writes Andrew Stevenson.

A car pulls up in the front drive of a house in Sydney. From the back seat a squawk; in the front, two furrowed brows. ''My God,'' admit the new parents to each other, ''we know nothing about this.'' So begins yet another chapter in the Parenting Project.

Parenting has been elevated to an act of sublime importance. That parenting matters is the motherhood statement of our era. In modern Western society, parenting has come to be viewed - at least from the inside and from the researchers, activists and advocates who shepherd new parents through their child-rearing - as the most precious job in life.

But parents have been around forever and their children grew up and had children themselves. The idea that their role in life is ''to parent'' their offspring is remarkably new, with its arrival as a verb matched by the transformation in our thinking about how the time children spend in the family makes adults into the people they are.

The first few years of life are back in vogue as never before, a return to a form of infant determinism. We're not quite talking plasticine but the idea that parents shape and sculpt their children has taken root at a deep level in our society, placing an onerous burden of responsibility on parents to get it right.

In many ways we've brought it on ourselves. In the relentless pursuit of meaning and status, having children and looking after them as best one could is no longer enough. Nor is being a mum. We have to be engaged parents, finding time - of quality and in quantity - to devote to a socially esteemed task. A lazy hour is a wasted opportunity to fire a neuron, learn a new skill, make a better person of the toddler at your feet.

Parent as a verb, and parenting as a noun, made it into the Macquarie Dictionary only in 1997, yet so ubiquitous have they become it's virtually impossible to imagine a conversation about families, adults and children without them.

''The verb 'to parent' is ever so much more active than the noun, which simply describes the fact of having a child,'' says Susan Butler, the editor of the Macquarie. ''In the '80s and '90s you get this real focus on the parent-child relationship and the responsibility of parents to produce wonderful offspring who are going to be paragons of virtue and success - and the general anxiety that parents have felt ever since about their responsibility to do the right thing by their children.''

Of course, parents have always wanted the best for their children. The change has been to wrap all this up as a conscious task and give it a name. Robin Barker, whose commonsense guides to babies and toddlers have sold half a million copies, hates it.

But it's not only because it's sludgy grammar but because it accompanied a swing towards more obsessive parenting. Barker, a midwife and child and family health nurse, approved of the move away from a harsh, distant style of raising children - ''it's just that it all went mad''. She believes having children has become a form of project management, parents obsessing about the little details such as whether their baby should have one spoon of cereal or two and taking to extremes a vision of their children as extensions of themselves.

''There's this incredible competition about whose child is doing what first, right from when they're little babies,'' she says.

''But we can't discount the pressure they're under from external childcare people like me. Honestly, I'd ditch my books now, I'm over all this. I actually wrote them initially to help with some of this stuff but in some ways I think I've made it worse. I really wouldn't care if they disappeared off the face of the Earth.''

Search ''parenting'' and the internet throws up millions of options, with an entire information industry accompanying parents as they watch every step their child takes. Lyn Craig of the social policy research centre at the University of NSW says: ''Raising children became a job with skills, with experts telling parents - mothers - what was required''. Those mothers themselves were also markedly different from their mothers.

In 1970 women had their first baby in their early 20s, with very few having studied beyond high school. Now the average age of mothers is 30.

In this same period women's engagement in the workforce and at university has expanded exponentially. Women bring a completely different set of life experiences to the change table. Used to taking on complex tasks in the workplace, for many parenting became their next project. Simultaneously, men - who've always had that work focus - were drawn into the bosom of the family like never before.

Despite the constant complaints about time pressures both parents are spending more with their children than ever before, says Michael Bittman, a professor at the University of New England and the leading Australian authority on time-use data. ''There's also an education gradient. The higher your educational qualification, the more time you will spend with your children, and that holds for men and women,'' he says, noting that everyone is heading in the same direction.

''The more educated are doing more but everyone is on the escalator going up.''

The emergence of dads as active figures in modern parenting - as opposed to blokes who dragged their kids along to whatever it was they were doing on the weekend - has been part of the transformation.

''Some time between 1974 and the early '90s fathers got interested in their kids at a much earlier age,'' Bittman says. ''There was an older culture where males weren't allowed in the delivery room but they also stayed away from their kids until they were old enough to kick a football. But the more recent surveys show they're in there right from the start.''

Men took on a role and women, coming out of the workforce, wanted a role that didn't cast them forever in aprons.

''When women started to have a choice of working outside or working at home, working at home became a more active thing. You weren't just sitting there, you had to be doing something,'' Craig says.

That something was parenting, with the responsibility of parents growing throughout the past century from nutrition and hygiene, to physical health then mental and later emotional health, as well as cognitive development. The idea grew that ''you shouldn't just be hanging out with your children, that every waking moment is a learning opportunity and you should have a pleasant fun-filled relationship so it became emotional work as well''.

''Very interestingly, considering that women have moved into the workforce and full-time working hours have gone up, parenting time for both men and women has gone up,'' Craig says. ''It's become much more conscious, much more intensive, focused and active. It's not just family time. You have to be doing something.''

Some see Jean-Jacques Rousseau at the heart of this; others Sigmund Freud. ''The founding premise is that what matters in childhood really matters and that parents really matter in childhood. And that's Freud really,'' Craig says.

ACCOMPANYING the rise of project parenting has been the mushrooming of research into children's development and how best to understand it. We know, says Matt Sanders, the founder of the Triple P, the positive parenting program, that parenting is the single most important factor in children's lives that can be changed. ''What you're getting is a justifiable increase in attention on parenting because there's a very strong evidence base that parenting matters,'' he says.

''Parenting is related to everything - whether you're talking about children's language or their social skills, whether you're talking their peer relationships, whether you're talking about their capacity to regulate emotion, how well they do in school, their physical health and well-being, whether they have brain injuries as a result of child abuse - all of these things are related to family relationships and parenting.''

Although many who argue the case for better parenting producing a more wholesome society - with less road rage, says one advocate - much of the modern thinking is based on economic rationalism. Government investment is predicated on results. Children who go off the rails - or who grow into adults living on the margins of society - are expensive to look after, be it in foster care, hospital or jail. The idea of a big return on investment for every dollar spent supporting parents of babies and toddlers is based on the work of the Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman.

Heckman has campaigned for investment in the educational and development resources of disadvantaged families to support the development of cognitive and social skills in the first five years as a way of transforming the US workforce and its society.

But Craig is concerned that work assessing marginalised families has been extrapolated to count for the whole of society and says that it has limited relevance among middle-class families where children are already well supported.

''They're not very robust studies and some of them are more about disadvantaged children having access to preschool and that being good for them. And who could argue with that? But you don't really know if there's any marginal gain for a middle-class child who might have had a Spanish lesson,'' she says.

Sanders counters that there is a return ''at every level of income'' and argues that his program of structured intervention - from mass communication, to parenting seminars and ultimately intense 12-session programs for complex cases - can make ''a massive difference to the number of children developing preventable emotional and behavioural problems''.

If parents are spending sleepless nights worrying about the choices they make, Sanders says that's because choices do matter.

But there are more choices than ever, with the breakdown of neighbourhood school enrolments opening a new world of agony for many adults who believe choosing the right school - and even the right time to begin - will be a key influence on how their child ''turns out''.

Barker can barely disguise her disdain. ''There's even this huge drama now about when children start school. When my kids were little, when they turned a certain age, they went to school. Now parents are agonising about it, running off to psychologists all about [when they should be] starting school,'' she says.

Craig says this is underpinned by the idea that our basic point of humanity is choices based on economic rationalism - surveying the options and choosing the best, ''which we're now doing on behalf of our children as well''. Choosing a school, and the growth of both private and selective schools, are symptomatic. Schools, too, are heavily engaged in manipulating children's lives, with selective classes beginning from the age of six and policies about separating children from their closest friends to force them to make new ones - examples of the conscious focus on shaping their development.

Along the way, parents are putting themselves under enormous pressure to get it right. Craig's question is: to what end? ''I don't know if it makes a lot of difference to the child - or even if it's actually good for the child. That's untested,'' she says.

More time with parents means less time for other relationships and a rising emotional intensity. ''Built into the idea that you spend all this time with your child is belief that the primary relationship is the parent and the child - not the siblings or the friendship group. The more time you spend with the children the better, the more intense you are the better - surely there is a limit.''

Making Career And Kids Work: Sydney Workshop

On Tuesday 21st September, Karen Miles will be presenting a positive look at how to make career and kids work! This is a vital opportunity for both working parents and those looking to make a return to work. Working parents can feel burned out, overlooked, and frustrated realising their full potential. There’s often a niggling feeling that your career post children no longer fits like it once did and you can’t put your finger on why. Using ‘The Working Parents Model’, discover the four key questions every working parent needs to ask of their employer, and their current role, to assess your existing levels of engagement and identify opportunities for positive change. In this interactive presentation, guest speaker Karen Miles, will help you to maintain your performance, learn when to cut your losses, and create a work / life mix that actually works. Date: 21/09/2010 Time: 7pm - 9pm Facilitator: Karen Miles Venue: 11 Farran Street Lane Cove Cost: $48.00 inc GST Catering: Light Supper Provided For more information and bookings click here or call (02) 9557 4843

Fathers also get the baby blues

A great article in today's SMH about depression and dads. What they fail to mention, as they always do in any article on PND matters, is that beyond genetics and hormones, the bigger your life before babies, the more vulnerable you are to depression. Ask any A-type personality. Here's the article...

DEPRESSION among fathers is so common that one in five will experience it while their children are young, research shows.

A study of nearly 87,000 families in Britain has found 21 per cent of fathers and 39 per cent of mothers experienced a period of depression by the time their child was 12 years old.

Depression was most common among parents of babies, with 13 per cent of mothers and 3 per cent of fathers becoming depressed by the time their child reached its first birthday.

Postnatal depression is technically defined as depression that begins within four weeks of childbirth, although many support groups define it as beginning within one year of birth.

Healthcare workers should routinely screen for depression among both fathers and mothers, the study authors wrote in the journal Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

The chief executive of the Post and Antenatal Depression Association, Belinda Horton, said postnatal depression among Australian men and women was more common than thought.

"People often don't seek help because there is a very ingrained stigma around mental illnesses - even more so when it occurs at a time that is supposed to be celebratory and joyous," she said.

Causes included genetic predisposition to depression, physical ill-health, sleep deprivation, and hormonal changes. Life circumstances such as lack of support or previous trauma could also contribute.

''I get really cranky when it is written off as a hormonal problem for women only,'' Ms Horton said. ''Men haven't given birth but they clearly experience it as well.''

Nicole Highet, the deputy chief executive of beyondblue, said while some small Australian studies had found higher rates of depression among men who had recently had children, there was no large-scale evidence of this.

But the stresses of raising a child could make depression harder to deal with. "When you have a child and you are depressed you have parental responsibilities that mean you have to keep going," she said. "That is one of the things that makes it so hard".

Post and Antenatal Depression support line 1300 726 306

September 10, 2010, SMH, Amy Corderoy HEALTH

Mumpreneurs Masterclass

Three tables. Three Experts. Twenty-one Mumpreneurs. Join me at the Mumpreneurs Masterclass!

Have you been to seminars where you're just one in a crowd? Nodding along to what the presenter is saying but then not willing to tackle the rugby scrum that has appeared around the presenter after the speech?

This event takes that element away and gives you focused time with some seriously brainy experts.

Each table is hosted by a member of our Mumpreneur Brains Trust. After each course, they move on to the next table and you get more focused time with another of our fabulous experts. Musical Experts, if you will!

And who are these Experts?

Karen Miles is an author, business owner, speaker, TV presenter/producer and coach AND an expert on motherhood and its impact on identity and career.

Lara Solomon started the company LaRoo and launched the product Mocks. After huge success with the Mocks brand on Facebook (12,000 fans in 3 months!) she started SOCIAL RABBIT to advise businesses on the world of social media.

Julia Bickerstaff runs THE BUSINESS BAKERY and BUTTERFLY COACHING. She is all about having her cake and eating it too..in a financial sense, of course!

And they've all written books!

Date: Wednesday 25 August 2010
Time: 1200 - 2pm

Venue:
Hilton Sydney
Level 2 Room 2
488 George Street, Sydney

TICKETS:

The Mumpreneurs MASTERCLASS ticket gives you:

Focused time with experts

Opportunity to meet Mumpreneurs

Three course 5 Star lunch

Mum Organiser from Inner-b.

Compare the cost of engaging a business coach and consider this an investment in you and your business.

And remember, it's a tax deduction for your business.

EARLYBIRD SPECIAL $135
Valid until 5pm Friday 6 August 2010

REGULAR PRICE $155

Book your ticket or for more details visit http://www.hillstrainingstation.com.au/mumpreneursmasterclass.html